Joe Francis Threatens Gawker Over ‘Douche of the Decade’ Award

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Last week, Gawker awarded Girls Gone Wild franchise inventor Joe Francis the title of Douche of the Decade. It was a silly little competition, meant to entertain readers by having them choose between many of the site’s favorite male targets over the past few years (I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell author Tucker Max and American Apparel founder Dov Charney were also-rans). But in the write-up of Francis’s victory, Gawker writer Alex Pareene referred to the Hollywood hotshot as a “rapist” — something Francis has never been convicted or even accused of in a court of law, though at least one woman alleged it on the record in an interview. So Francis (somewhat merrily, really) announced that he would sue the website, sending off a pretty awesome missive to Gawker owner Nick Denton entitled: “Hey Nick, Your fucked.” [sic]

From the letter:

Emphasis and punctuation his. Attached was a picture of a shirtless Francis wearing jeans and a bemused smirk. What’s funny about this is that even as he fights against the “rapist” label, something about the tone and delivery of this whole letter/lawsuit says to us: “Hey guys, thanks for the award. It really meanssomething.”